Tthe Land of Memories

I watched a fascinating documentary on BBC recently, about British whaling and how it had continued into the 1960s.

This was quite a surprise to me, as I am sure it would have been to so many people. Something that is unthinkable today, and yet was happening as recently as in the 60s.

What perhaps has stimulated my thoughts in an unexpected way was simply the knowledge that the principal whaling station on South Georgia was called Port of Leith.

This is the kind of geography that no one would be expected to know, not even to remember.

I suppose I only remember it because for three years I lived in Leith, the port of Edinburgh, between 1995 and 1998.

In this period of my life, two years before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I was working as the Development Director for the Scottish chamber Orchestra.

I have fond memories of my time in this employment, and it is perhaps more frequently in my thoughts these days as the vote for Scottish secession comes potentially closer.

Who knows which way the Scots will vote, and far be it from me to second-guess them.

But I do have personal experience of that peculiar sense of Scottish nationalism, in that working for a National Scottish company, I did experience at times what can only be described as racism.

I was told to my face on one occasion that the job I was doing should be done by a Scot, but when I spoke about this to my boss, who was also an Englishman, he reassured me and said quite simply that they had appointed the best person for the job.

What this has reminded me of our those experiences that I had living in Scotland, almost exclusively positive, as Leith in Edinburgh was definitely on the up during my time there, thanks primarily to the fact that a new Scottish office building had recently been constructed in the port area, as a preliminary to the construction of the new Scottish Parliament building.

This meant that the flat in which my wife and I lived was within 400 yards of an extraordinary selection of world class restaurants, most of which had been opened in the wake of the transformation of the old port as part of the general tidying up of a depressed part of Scotland’s capital.

We loved eating out, and we truly had an incredible selection within short walking distance of where we were living.

This was a purpose built block of flats, but constructed in about 1816. The style of apartment is particular to Edinburgh, and would be described as a drawing room flat.

In short, this meant high ceilings and a huge living room.

We had a period shutters and a truly gigantic living room, that gave us spacious living, and good views from our second floor position.

Another proposed development that happened whilst we were in Edinburgh was the location of a permanent mooring for the Royal yacht Britannia, in the Port of Leith itself, with an associated shopping mall linked to a mooring station for transatlantic shipping.

This certainly added to reasons why people might visit Leith, and perhaps explains why when we left Edinburgh, we made a small killing on the sale of our flat, after owning it for just three years.

Of all of the restaurants available to us, perhaps our favourite was a small French restaurant, the name of which escapes me.

This was located just a little out of the way in the conversion of one of the many old warehouse buildings that would have served the merchants of the port.

It was an excellent conversion, and whilst we never ate upstairs, there was apparently an upstairs room that could be used for functions is required.

But we quickly felt completely at home in the beautifully and simply designed ground floor restaurant, and we seemed never to have a problem getting a table.

Service was attentive and efficient, and the linen was crisp and white.

And the food. French influenced but of the minimalist and uncluttered by sauces, but beautifully presented on a fabulous selection of square white plates.

It became a home from home for us, and though not as inexpensive as we might have liked, it became the place that we regularly dined weekly at, and if occasion presented itself, at the least excuse.

I remember precious little detail of the menus, but then, this is not a restaurant review. Suffice that the food was excellent and to our taste.

I remember that the restaurant was presided over by the portrait of a woman, that was I think uncompleted. But this only added to the sense of the space, and it may have been a genuine period antique, though it may equally have been painted only recently but with an accomplished hand.

Everything about the place spoke of style, and no wonder that we wished we could eat there on a daily basis.

I wonder sometimes if it still exists, though it matters not as it remains one of my fondest memories of time spent in Scotland.

And in the land of memories, nothing need change.

Confessions Of A Moustache Waxer

I have recently started to wax my moustache.

Why this feels like some kind of confession, I don’t know.

It isn’t the first time that I have waxed my moustache, although to be honest I had thought that I was no longer subject to the vanities of youth.

I am 53 years of age, and severely disabled thanks to multiple sclerosis. So this is hardly something that is designed to improve my Saturday nights on the town.

The first time that I waxed my moustache was when I was much younger, and years before MS was over on the scene.

I was 22 years of age, living as a recently graduated student in London, and active in the management of the housing in which I had been living since my last year at university.

This was a housing co-operative in East London, and my only photographic evidence of my appearance at the time is my old underground monthly tube pass, which has a small passport sized photograph showing me with my waxed moustache.

Although I display this small image proudly tucked into the frame of a picture on one of my walls, most people that see it think of it as something rather quirky, and my ex-wife and good friend (still) has been quite frank with me, and says that I look as if I were some kind of terrorist.

I can’t say that I agree, but perhaps there is something less than typical about this photograph.

This would have been taken in about 1982, and at the time, I obtained my supplies of moustache wax from a small costume supplier somewhere off Drury Lane in the West End of London.

It was the kind of small shop that I imagine would have gone out of business many years ago, and so when it came to obtaining supplies of moustache wax once again only recently, I had no idea where I would obtain supplies.

Of course, what I had failed to take into account was the fact that we live in the Internet age, and a swift search of the Internet led me to a page of moustache wax suppliers on Amazon which quite took me aback.

The choice was astonishing, I had no idea that I would be presented with the problem of choice rather than the difficulty of finding the stuff.

Clearly, there has been a resurgence of interest in moustache waxing.

And of course, since I have started to wax my moustache, I have started to see waxed moustaches in many contexts where otherwise I might have entirely missed them.

So for example garden designers at the recent Chelsea flower show, and this has made me reflect simply that when you get a red car, you see red cars everywhere.

Another inspiration for me has been the recent BBC dramatised documentary of the 37 days leading up to the start of the First World War.

Set in that summer of 1914, it is a veritable parade of extraordinary moustaches, from all across Europe.

It has made me start to ruminate about the way in which this was of course the glory day of the waxed moustache, and I realise that I have been a secret collector of old photographs of men with grand moustaches, picking them up in junk shops and at the markets. Almost rescuing them or adopting them when they have become forgotten and unloved.

But there is perhaps something sombre and sad in the realisation that it was the First World War that put an end to this aspect of male vanity in its ultimate flowering.

Because all of those grand moustaches from the Edwardian period were destroyed in that terrible conflict, and in some respects, it is a terrible cliche that the young officer leading his troops from the trenches and into battle would have sported some kind of handlebar moustache.

But there it is, I have started to cultivate a waxed moustache, and in my case, given the limitations placed upon me by my multiple sclerosis, I am fortunate that my carers have risen to the challenge of waxing my moustache for me.

It has become part of my daily routine, being assisted with shaving using an electric razor, rather than having a three-day stubble which has been my typical appearance since forever.

And then, a slap and a wax. The application of aftershave, the slap, and then the waxing of the moustache.

It’s my only vanity, I console myself.